


Sleep Study

by brynnmck



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-06-12
Updated: 2005-06-12
Packaged: 2017-12-14 06:37:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/833860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brynnmck/pseuds/brynnmck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Kara's never lost so many games of solitaire in her life.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleep Study

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to my wonderful beta, [](http://danceswithwords.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://danceswithwords.livejournal.com/)**danceswithwords** , for suggestions, support, and telling me that Kara and Lee run wearing shoes and not boots.

Kara shifts uncomfortably in her bunk, trying to find a position that will ease the ache in her injured knee. No matter how much she shifts, though, she can’t make the cards clutched in her hand resolve into anything that will match the cards already scattered on her bed, and finally she concedes defeat, tosses the useless little hexagons into a useless pile right next to her useless leg.

She can’t remember the last time she’s lost so many games of solitaire.

Could be her injury, or it could be that she used up all her luck convincing her Raider to fly her away from a red, dusty death. It could be Doc Cottle’s drugs—or lack thereof. It could be that the gods are too busy these days to bless the late-night amusements of one rebellious, grounded pilot.

It could be, she has to admit as her eyes stray to the side for the hundredth time, that Lee’s asleep in the bunk across from her, and he was too tired to close the curtain.

She deliberately focuses on a small grease smudge on the wall in front of her and wonders—not for the first time—what made him choose that particular rack. She knows from the Academy that he prefers the small measure of privacy and space that comes with a top bunk, so it had surprised her when he’d come in, that first night of hesitant deep breaths after the first wave of Cylon attacks, and slung his gear down in the bottom bunk directly across from hers. Still, she was the only person besides his father that he knew on the _Galactica_ at the time, so she guesses it makes sense that he’d have bunked near her, and there’s really not much point in him changing now.

That’s what she tells herself.

 

 

* * * * *

 

 _It’s the first night of the new, broken world and she starts awake from nightmares of mushroom clouds and relentless marching metal. She’s sweaty and breathless, the sheets twisted around her. For the first time she can remember,_ Galactica _feels alien, menacing, too many dark corners and too many empty beds._

_Then her darting eyes stop on the bunk across from her. Lee’s there, she realizes. He’s hidden behind the curtain, but she can hear him breathing, soft and steady. She matches her own breaths to his rhythm, closes her eyes against a sudden rush of tears. She anchors herself on his presence and slides slowly into dreamless sleep._

 

 

* * * * *

 

_The stims are finally starting to wear off and she can feel the weight of five days and two-hundred-plus jumps dragging her eyelids shut, pinning her rubbery legs to her rack. But she can’t let go, can’t let herself drift because she can hear Lee across the room, shifting and sighing as quietly as possible so as not to disturb anyone else._

_She knows it’s not just the stims. She knows he’s seeing the_ Olympic Carrier _in his head, seeing faces of children in the empty windows, seeing them explode into flame. She wonders if he even noticed that she’d pulled the trigger, too._

_His breathing is starting to grow ragged, and she can’t take it anymore. She forces herself out of bed, feeling like she’s swimming through molasses, and makes her way over to his bunk._

_He pulls back the curtain slightly at the noise, just looks at her, and it’s hard to tell in the dark but she’s pretty sure that his eyes have an unusual sheen. She can see him trying to form words, trying to control his expression, trying to be the confident CAG she’d yelled at him to be._

_“Come on,” she says._

_He blinks, confused, red eyes and the shadow of stubble on his cheeks, and she tries not to think about the last time she saw him like this, two years ago that feels like yesterday._

_“Come on,” she repeats. “We’ve been in our cockpits too long—we need some exercise.”_

_He’s half-dressed already, shorts and a tank, ready to jump out of bed at the first sign of the Cylons’ return. So she opens his locker, grabs shoes and a pair of neatly-folded socks and plunks them down in front of him, then goes to her locker to retrieve her own._

_He still looks confused, and so tired she wonders how he can even sit upright, but she thinks there might be the beginning of gratitude in his eyes, too. She ducks her head to her own shoes before she can see too much of it. She finishes tying the laces, stands up, and slaps him on the shoulder._

_“Let’s go, flyboy.”_

_There’s just a skeleton crew on duty, and the ship is dark and nearly silent as they jog through the corridors. They don’t look at each other much, but she can sense the tension fading from him. The rhythmic clomp of their shoes on the deck lulls them gradually into exhaustion._

 

 

* * * * *

 

He’s exhausted, she thinks, her eyes drifting over to him again—the half-open curtain is clear evidence of that. Between his reserve and his need for order, that small oversight betrays as much as the dark circles under his eyes and the slight shadows beneath his cheekbones. Sympathy tugs at her, but she can’t deny the situation has its advantages, not the least of which is that Lee Adama is excruciatingly easy on the eyes, and any kind of extended staring at him while he’s awake is pretty much out of the question. The nuggets and the deckhands can giggle and sigh over him, but Starbuck can only banter, harry, criticize, tease, and make the occasional ribald remark. Now, though, it’s dark and her knee hurts and two-thirds of the ship is asleep, and her willpower is dwindling. She tells her inner cynic to shut up, gives up all pretense of card-playing. Shifts slightly onto her side and lets her eyes linger.

She studies his face, the curve of his shoulder, marble-pale from too long aboard ship and in uniform. The light is dim, but she knows him very, very well, and she can see the small, frustrated crease between his eyes—probably puzzling over the great moral, philosophical, and political questions of the day even in his dreams.

His mouth is slightly open, too, and she grins fondly as she notices the drool marring the pillow of the great Captain Apollo. She hopes, for his sake, that he rolls over before anyone else comes in or wakes up, but she likes seeing him this way, rumpled and flawed and real.

He’d come in late from a long day of meetings with the President and with his father, punctuated by a couple of briefings with the pilots and a full CAP to round things out, and some strange urge had inspired her to close her eyes and pretend to be asleep while he collapsed into his rack with a tired sigh. His breathing had steadied and deepened within seconds.

Though she’ll go to her grave denying it, she’s pretty much been watching him ever since.

She watches him a lot these days, actually, more than he knows, more than anyone knows, hopefully, though sometimes she thinks the old man might be on to her. It’s just that it seems obscene that she should have him back in the middle of everything that everyone’s lost; it’s a gift she knows she doesn’t deserve, and she’s never trusted gifts anyway, and she lives with the constant terror in the back of her mind that this is just the prelude to one more bitch-slap from the gods to punish the great Kara Thrace for her arrogance.

When they fly together, his position is fixed always in her mind, thrumming in her body like a second heartbeat. In battle, she swings and pivots around him like a lodestone.

 

 

* * * * *

 

_She jumps out of her cockpit and straight down to the deck, refusing to let her eyes anywhere near the scorch marks that blacken the surface of his Viper. Too close, too close to the cockpit, and her heart is pounding._

_She hates having to look up at him, so she waits as he takes his time removing his helmet, climbing down the ladder. The deckhands know what’s brewing and give them both a wide berth, suddenly busying themselves with other planes. As soon as his feet touch the ground, she’s right in his face._

_“What the frak was that?” she demands, and it’s not at all what she wants to say, but it’s what comes out of her mouth._

_He sighs and scrubs a hand through his hair. “What was what, Kara?” She sees, without wanting to, that he’s paler than usual, and standing so close to him, she can feel the fine tremors in his body. Unless it’s her, shaking; honestly, she can’t really tell._

_“That bastard almost had you.”_

_His mouth twists bitterly. “Well, thank the gods the great Starbuck was there to save my ass yet again.” He turns his back on her, starts out of the bay._

_“You can’t hesitate like that, Lee,” she presses, striding after him, not caring that the deckhands seem to have stopped moving._

_He rounds on her. “I did not frakking hesitate. Cat was coming in fast, I couldn’t take the shot without risking her.”_

_“You had time,” she insists. “I did.”_

_He leans close, and his voice hisses out, focused and furious. “Well, as everyone seems to be very well aware, I’m not you, Kara. We’re not all lucky enough to have Vipers and trigger fingers blessed by the gods, all right?”_

_But she isn’t blessed, she thinks desperately, and that’s the whole frakking problem._

_“Lee—” she starts, as he walks away from her again, anger in every line of him._

_He doesn’t even look back. “You’re dismissed, Lieutenant.” He takes a few more steps, and then he does look at her, and everything that’s going on in his eyes makes her wish that he hadn’t. “And if you ever put a member of this group at risk like that again, I’m revoking your flight status. I don’t care how many pilots we’re short.”_

_Then he’s gone, and she heads for the gym, pounds the bag until her hands are red and swollen. By the time she makes it back to the officers’ quarters, he’s already in his rack, the curtains stretched deliberately from wall to wall._

_She sighs quietly, sinks down onto her bunk and rests her head in her hands. She knows she’s being unreasonable—crazy, even—and it probably prevents her from doing her duties to the best of her abilities, and she’s obviously pushing even Lee’s formidable patience. But the few hours she’d spent in a world that didn’t have Lee Adama in it were an eternity, and it’s not an experience she has any intention of repeating._

 

 

* * * * * 

 

As much as she’s watching him, it’s impossible not to notice how well he’s doing, how much he’s becoming. Even at the Academy there had always been a duality in Lee, a natural instinct for leadership paired with his fear of it, his self-doubt. She wonders, sometimes, where he’d be if the world hadn’t ended, if he’d have ditched the military and opened up a bar in some quiet city, married a nice girl and wasted all his intelligence and perception on trying to divine his customers’ petty problems. She thinks it’s not unlikely, and seeing him slowly flourish like this is another gift, something else she clings to and doesn’t trust.

She can’t tell him any of it, of course.

 

 

* * * * *

 

 _She’s picking disinterestedly at_ Galactica _’s definition of food when Lee slides into the seat across from her. He’s brave, she’ll give him that; no one else has dared to come near her. She glances up at him, and from the way his eyebrows raise, she knows her glance is at least half glare._

_“Wow. Rough day?” he asks, grabbing his fork and starting to shovel something green into his mouth. He makes it through about three chews before he winces. “Gods. I think it’s getting worse.”_

_Something about the way his nose is scrunched up makes her grin in spite of herself. “I was hoping that was impossible, but I think you’re right.”_

_He clutches his heart. “Wait. Did you just say I was right?” She throws a limp piece of lettuce at him, but he just starts patting his pockets. “Hang on, let me find a pen, I need to mark this occasion…”_

_“Shut up, Lee,” but he ignores her, finds a pen—always prepared—and grabs the napkin from his tray._

_He dates the napkin with a flourish, narrates as he writes. “Starbuck… said… Apollo… was…”_

_She’s laughing out loud now, and bizarrely enough, the food is actually starting to look a little appetizing. “You are such a—”_

_“Captain Adama?” It’s Gaeta, standing next to them with a full tray and an uncertain smile. She’d nearly bitten his head off earlier in the day, and he’s looking a little wary of her still._

_Lee looks up from his work, grinning. “Yes, Lieutenant? We’re just having an historic moment here…”_

_She tries to kick him under the table, but he evades easily. She could try harder, but she wants Gaeta to finish whatever he has to say and move on._

_Gaeta’s smile widens a bit. “Just wanted to tell you there’s a card game later, sir. 2100 in the wardroom, if you’re interested.”_

_Lee smiles back, and something twists in Kara’s chest. He’s well-named, Apollo is, and the more time he spends on Galactica the brighter he shines. She tells herself she’s happy for him, and she is, but there’s still a part of her that’s screaming_ mine mine mine.

_“You figure you might win one if you keep me out of it, huh, Gaeta?” She can’t quite keep the edge out of her voice._

_He’s starting to look nervous again. “We just… we thought you might not be in the mood. But you’re welcome, too, of course.”_

_She forces a smile and a shrug. “I feel bad anyway, taking everyone’s stuff all the time. Crash is down to a few pairs of socks, I think, and Boomer’s never gonna forgive me for that.”_

_Lee’s looking at her speculatively, and he seems to know something’s up. “C’mon, Kara, I’ve got a secret stash of cigars that could be yours.”_

_“Nah,” she replies, starts poking at her food again. “Got stuff to do.”_

_She’s focused on her plate, but she hears Lee tell Gaeta, “I’ve got a meeting with the President and a debriefing with the Commander and Colonel Tigh, but I’ll try to stop by. Thanks for the invitation.”_

_“We’ll look forward to seeing you, sir,” Gaeta replies, and she stabs at her food viciously as he moves away._

_Lee clears his throat. “So. You were going to tell me about your day.”_

_But after he’s just mentioned meetings with the three highest-ranking people in the fleet, she can’t quite bring herself to admit that she and Cally spent most of the day up to their elbows in her Viper, trying to fix a problem that turned out to have a frustratingly simple solution._

_She hitches a shoulder, shakes her head. “Ah, it’s nothing,” she answers. Her food tastes like mush again. She looks up at Lee, stretches her mouth into something like a smile. “Y’know what? I’ve got CAP in thirty. Leave Crash some socks, OK, champ?”_

_She stands abruptly, grabs her tray, and he probably sees right through her, but she’s up and gone before he can respond. The clatter of dishes in the galley makes it easy for her to ignore him calling, “Kara!” after her. It’s not until she gets back to the officers’ quarters that she realizes she somehow ended up with his inscribed napkin crumpled in her hand. She tosses it onto her rack, grabs her uniform jacket and shrugs into it, heads down to the hangar to pick a fight with Tyrol until her patrol starts._

_She tries not to yell too much at the nuggets unlucky enough to share the CAP with her, but she doesn’t succeed as well as she probably should. She’ll make it up to them later, she thinks._

_That night, she draws the curtains on her rack and digs out the ball of napkin, smoothes it over her knee and studies his writing, the familiar, neat lines of it. His bed is empty, and she imagines him in her chair at the card table, imagines him laughing with Gaeta and flirting with Dee, winning just slightly more often than he loses._

_She’s the better pilot, the better card player, and occasionally the better tactician. But Lee, she knows, is the better damn near everything else._

 

 

* * * * * 

 

And it’s not just her watching him, either. He watches her, too, in a way that makes her skin heat, and the gravel of his voice in her ear at the end of a long patrol makes her shift in her cockpit. There are times when flying with him feels so good she wants a cigar afterwards, and they never, ever touch except when they’re drunk or when they absolutely can’t avoid it. These are all warning signs, and they’re starting to build and terrify her, not just because it’s about twenty different kinds of wrong but because it’s a miracle the old man has survived loving Kara Thrace for as long as he has, and now she can hear the clock ticking with both of them.

 

 

* * * * * 

 

 _She wakes, sweaty and breathless, and it takes her a moment to realize that she’s alone in her rack after all. She can still feel his hands on her, his mouth on her neck, the solid warmth of him on top of her and his skin sliding against hers, but the only thing that seems to be real is the slick dampness between her legs. She shouldn’t even be thinking about it, but she’s shaking with want and she tells herself_ just this once, _starts to slide her hand down her stomach._

_She freezes when she hears the rustle of cloth across from her, and his low, indistinct moan is loud in her ears. “Kara…gods, Kara…”_

_Her breath catches in her throat._

_He’s dreaming, too._

_Just those three words, and then silence, but it’s more than enough. She closes her eyes and shakes, and doesn’t sleep._

 

 

* * * * * 

 

She shakes away a sudden chill of dread, concentrates on the angle of Lee’s jaw, the slight curve of his collarbone. He’s still here, with her, and she hasn’t killed him yet, and she suddenly wants him to wake up and talk to her, smile at her, only she’s afraid of what she’ll say.

When his eyes open, she almost falls out of bed.

He’s only half-awake, blinking blearily at her. “Kara?”

His voice is rough with sleep and his eyes are blue and soft and unguarded, and it’s a good thing her knee is frakked or she might not be able to resist the sudden longing urge to cross the room and crawl into the small bunk with him, curl up with him and damn the consequences.

“Hey,” she says instead.

He rubs his eyes. “You OK?”

“Knee hurts,” she whispers, suddenly very aware of Sharon snoring softly, two racks down.

He frowns slightly, lifts his head off the pillow. “You want me to get you—”

She wrinkles her nose and smiles. “Nah. Go back to sleep, Apollo.”

“You sure?” His eyelids are already drooping again.

“Lords know you need the beauty sleep,” she grins, and he mumbles, “Ha ha,” as he closes his eyes and drops back onto the pillow.

“Lee?” she ventures after a moment, her eyes focused on the uneven edge of his hair where it’s starting to curl just slightly against his neck.

“Mmph.” Barely audible.

It’s dark and they’re deep in space and maybe if she says it quietly enough, the gods won’t hear.

“I’m glad you’re here.”

It’s hardly even a whisper, and he’s probably asleep, but the worry-crease between his eyes is gone and she thinks there might be the smallest curve of a smile on his mouth.

He’ll probably end up drooling again, and if she was a real friend, a good officer, she’d wake him again and remind him about the curtain.

She falls asleep still watching him.


End file.
